If you’re a stock investor, you should always be prepared to lose at least 50% of your money in a few months’ time—and if you’re not prepared to do, that you don’t belong in the market.

The market is feeling more volatile than it actually is. A 200-point move in the Dow used to signify well over 2%; today it’s a much smaller move. If you can’t take this, you shouldn’t have been owning stocks in the first place.

There are better alternatives to commodities to protect against inflation, such as Treasury inflation-protected securities and I-Bonds.

In emerging markets, we’ve seen losses above 10%—but what’s really remarkable is how unremarkable it is. Emerging markets are much more volatile. Emerging markets were cheap before the recent drop, and they are still much cheaper than markets in developed countries—including the U.S. But you’ve got to be able to withstand a lot more volatility than we’ve seen before.

Cash isn’t trash. If you are an investor, then keeping a portfolio in cash is the base opportunity you have to cash in if the market goes down—you can then put that cash to work. Investors need cash and courage in order to participate when assets get cheaper.

Commodities over the long term, on an inflation adjusted basis, invariably will lose you money.